Symrise Gains as Quarterly Sales Beat Estimates

By Weixin Zha -
Aug 7, 2013

Symrise AG (SY1), the fourth-biggest maker
of fragrance and flavors, rose the most since May in Frankfurt
trading as accelerating second-quarter sales showed resilience
to the crisis that has befallen its chemical industry peers.

Symrise rose as much as 5.2 percent to 34.45 euros, the
highest intraday price since May 8, and was trading up 4.3
percent at 11:39 a.m. in Frankfurt. That values the company at 4
billion euros ($5.3 billion) with trading volume at more than 60
percent of the three-month daily average. The stock was the
biggest gainer in the 20-member Bloomberg Europe Chemicals
Index, which fell 0.6 percent.

Symrise, based in Holzminden, Germany, reported an 8.7
percent increase in second-quarter sales to 477 million euros,
compared with an average estimate of 464 million euros in a
Bloomberg survey. As it predicted the “robust demand” of the
first half to continue for the rest of 2013, the company
affirmed its goal to “notably exceed” growth in the global
market for fragrances and flavors of 2 percent to 3 percent this
year.

“I was positively surprised by the organic growth of
revenue,” Norbert Barth, an analyst at Baader Bank AG (BWB) in
Frankfurt, said by phone today. “The weakness of the chemical
industry did not show at Symrise as it supplies the consumer
industry.”

An 8.5 percent increase in second-quarter net income, and a
9.8 percent rise in earnings before interest and taxes put
earnings declines by industry peers in the shade.

European Recession

Brenntag AG (BNR), the world’s largest distributor of chemicals,
posted second-quarter operating profit that fell 8.3 percent to
169.1 million euros from a year earlier, missing analyst
estimates, as it succumbed to a European economy struggling to
emerge from recession. Its shares slid as much as 6.1 percent to
make Brenntag the chemical index’s biggest decliner.

Yesterday, Lanxess AG (LXS), based in Cologne, lowered its profit
forecast for 2014 and said it’s stepping up cost-cutting
measures as second-quarter profit slumped to 9 million euros
from 174 million euros.

Shares of the German supplier of plastics and rubber to the
automotive industry fell as much as 2.5 percent today, bringing
this week’s decline to 6.3 percent.